1) African Underground: Hip Hop in Senegal

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here>>

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Tomorrow marks the first day of summer (and my Mom’s birthday - Happy Birthday Mom!) - so spend the day outside and then curl up with a good movie! These are my Top 10 Summer Inspired Movies.

And takepart to learn how to keep for your house cool for yes and also be better to the environment.

1. Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat)

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Juneteenth is an annual holiday that commemorates the abolition of slavery in Texas. On June 19, 1865,- two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect- Union soldiers sailed into Galveston, Texas, announced the end of the Civil War. They read aloud a general order freeing the quarter-million slaves residing in the state and that day has become known as Juneteenth.

Top 10 Films to Watch on Juneteenth:

1) To Kill A Mockingbird

Based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning book of 1960, this film tells the story of Atticus Finch, a lawyer in a racially divided Alabama town in the 1930s. He agrees to defend a young black man who is accused of raping a white woman.

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Rosie Perez is talking about her awkward sex scene with John Leguizamo for the movie “The Take”. And everyone is talking about Rosie joining “Exit 19″ a CBS pilot with Geena Davis. But the most exciting Rosie related news is what she talked about when she spoke at Kutztown University, in Pennsylvania. Rosie told a crowd of over 400 people to “Listen to your hearts and do something about the injustices in the world.” Rosie also explained how her own activist spirit launched her career.

My life would not have changed if I didn’t have that activist spirit… If I didn’t have something inside me that I didn’t understand at that time, at 19 years old, that said, “˜This is wrong. I’m going to stand up and make this stop by any means necessary.’

What was it that the Brooklyn-native 19 year-old-boricua biochemistry major saw that made her so upset? It involved Spike Lee!

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We all remember the Cary Grants, George Clooneys, Al Pacinos, Robert DeNiros and Brad Pitts - and as wonderful as they all are, a great film they do not make - at least not on their own. Likewise, when it comes to making a difference, or working on an action, not everyone can get the glory. And a solid team is always stronger than one person working alone.

In honor of this, I give you - the Top 10 Actors Consistently in Supporting Roles. Often called character actors, the men below all did their part in smaller roles to make many films much more memorable.

Of course there a ton I didn’t mention - contribute to the discussion and leave your vote in the comments section. And if you want to learn how you can be a team player and TakePart, and sign up here at TakePart.com to join actions and meet folks you can work with and support in making the world a better place.

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1. Ned Beatty : His first role, in Deliverance (1972), set the stage for Ned Beatty to become someone that would entertain us quite frequently. With smaller roles in films that include Network, Superman, All the President’s Men, He Got Game and most recently Charlie Wilson’s War, Ned Beatty is one of the best examples of how being a team player can make the team (in this case “the movie”) something truly amazing. Below is a clip from his great performance in Network.

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NAACP Image Awards, Academy Awards, Grammy’s are nothing new to the actor/activists Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. But for the first time ever, the dynamic duo win my Valiant Valentine Award. Valentine’s Day Week, kicked off my Valentine’s week-long series on the 5 coolest activist couples. I honored activist & actor Susan Sarandon and her partner, activist, actor & director Tim Robbins with a VVA, that’s a Valiant Valentine Award, for those of you just tuning in. Now I’m awarding another VVA to a couple who have shown their love for each other and for civil rights, human rights, and peace. And the award goes to…

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were not only award-winning and distinguished actors, but social change-winning and distinguished civil rights activists. The couple, married for 56 years, won NAACP Image Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and was honored by the Kennedy Center, not only for their roles on stage and screen, but for their roles as trailblazers who opened the door for so many black actors who came after them.

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Check out these Top 10 stories from January 2008 about social action written by our very own TakePart bloggers. From Cadbury to Clooney, these advocacy-oriented stories will encourage awareness and action to create positive changes in our communities and in the world.

1) Clooney Claims Role as Peace Messenger

2) The Reinvestment Fund Helps Low-Income Baltimore Families During Sub-Prime Fallout

3) Ron Hunter Is A Superstar!

4) Great YouTube Video About Burma From Michael Stipe

5) Cadbury Strikes Sweet Deal With Cocoa Farmers

6) Uptown Girls Is Down on Power Lines

7) Greenpeace Persuades Chefs to Support Sustainable Seafood

8 ) BGCI Helps Save Medicinal Plants From Extinction

9) Top 5 Socially Conscious Movie Trailers

10) I Believe That Children See the Future Drawings of Climate Change

I love movie trailers! There is nothing better than seeing an awesome trailer (except maybe seeing an awesome movie). The amount of crappy trailers out there is astonishing and seeing one that is well crafted is something to take note of. For me a good trailer does a few things:

1. Gets me excited about the movie - plain and simple
2. While it gets me excited it doesn’t give anything away - there is a fine line between letting me see what the film will sound and feel like, and telling me exactly what’s going to happen.
3. No narration! Show me why I should see the movie - don’t tell me! If you really need to give me some information, do it subtlety with well crafted cards
4. I don’t care how many film festivals your film has been to or what critics like it - if the movie is good, take some time and edit something together that shows me that it’s good.
5. Use music, use images, use dialogue - put them together in awesome creative ways - make me feel something!

In that spirit and in the spirit of films that are actually working to make the world a better place, I present you with my list of the Top 5 Socially Conscious Movie Trailers (ie : trailers for movies that are socially conscious).

Remember the focus is on the trailers not the films (although all of the films are good!) - the list is below the fold - so click the link below to watch the trailers, then let me know if I’ve missed any you love in the comments section and be sure to look after each trailer for how you can take action!

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